Books / News

In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law Published

In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright LawI am delighted to report that In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law has been published and is now available for purchase or free download under a Creative Commons license (I should note that all royalties will be donated to Creative Commons).

I have great hopes for this book as I believe that by bringing together 19 experts from across Canada for a peer-reviewed, 600-page text on Bill C-60 and future Canadian copyright reform we will succeed in raising the quality of the copyright debate and ensure that there is a voice for non-partisan experts who are committed to copyright in the broader public interest.

The book divides the 19 contributions into three parts. Following my introduction, part one contains three essays (Murray, Scassa, Tawfik) that place Canadian copyright reform in context.

Part two features eleven essays on Bill C-60 including four contributions on TPMs (deBeer, Bailey, Kerr, Geist), two on education issues (Trosow, Wilkinson), and individual articles on RMI (Perry), making available (Fewer), ISP issues (Hamilton), performers’ rights (Sundara Rajan), and photographers’ issues (Cameron).

Part three turns to the future of Canadian copyright reform with five exceptional pieces on fair dealing (Craig), user rights (Drassinower), copyright term (Lametti), extended licensing (Gervais), and crown copyright (Judge).

I’ m grateful to all the contributors who put aside other commitments to get this done in an incredibly compressed time frame, to the peer-reviewers who provided great feedback, and to Irwin Law, for embracing not only the opportunity to publish a book on Canadian copyright but to adopt the Creative Commons license.

As we embark on a debate on the future of Canadian copyright, we need to hear from our own experts in their voice.  This book moves us in that direction.  Buy it or download it, but most of all read it.

3 Comments

  1. Great Work
    Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I have started to read it and will be sitting down to complete it soon.

  2. On behalf of all Canadians who have never heard of c-60 or the copyfight, and who don’t know enough (at this stage) to know just how much they really care about these issues and the impact on their future: Thanks so much for making these crucial debates and more accessible!

  3. Krys Wilken says:

    Broken link
    Hi there.

    It seems that the link to the book is broken.

    It looks like Iwrin Law has changes their site.

    I believe the new link is:

    http://www.irwinlaw.com/books.aspx?bookid=120

    but I cannot find the downloadable version of it.

    Anyway, thanks Michael for all your wonderful work. I really enjoy reading your blog.

    Krys